Alfredo Jaar exhibition: 'Shadows'

Alfredo Jaar’s "Shadows," a large-scale SCAD-commissioned installation, will make its world premiere at deFINE ART. This work follows in the footsteps of "The Sound of Silence" (2006) as the second part of a trilogy of installations revolving around the power of a single extraordinary documentary image.

Organized by Laurie Ann Farrell, SCAD executive director of exhibitions, "Shadows" unravels the narrative history of a stirring photograph taken by Koen Wessing near Estelí, Nicaragua, at the height of the revolution in September 1978. The structure of "Shadows" is inspired by "Chili, September 1973," a photo-based book created by Wessing about that fateful month in Chile.

Echoing the photographer’s masterpiece and paying homage to the golden age of photojournalism, Jaar’s installation employs a similar strategy to construct narrative. Viewers are guided through "Shadows" by light and sequential images that simultaneously illuminate and obscure readings of moments of loss, reverence and collective transcendence.